No matter how illustrious Saint-Denis Church had once been, it had now fallen into desolation.
It looked all right from a distance, but once they entered, they found wild grass everywhere. The famed beautiful stained-glass windows had been destroyed, charred pews lay toppled on the ground, and rubble was scattered everywhere.
That rubble might have come from statues of kings, queens, princesses, and princes, or perhaps from the statues of apostles that had stood upon the twelve columns.
It must have been a beautiful church when it was intact, especially the ambulatory windows behind the chapel, where the choir was said to have once sung.
The church faced east to west. When the sun rose, light would stream in through the ambulatory behind the chapel, shrouding the entire altar in a halo like Holy Light.
At that moment, the sun was setting in the west. Sunlight poured through the church's wide-open doors. The places that had once held tombs had been dug up, and the lightless graves were black as bottomless abysses. The air smelled of scorched stone, gunpowder, thyme, and frankincense.
"Those who broke into the church intended to burn it down and destroy the evidence," Bessières said. "Only, the fire never caught."
"They're made of stone, not wood," Denon said, studying the building materials.
"It looks as though this place has gone through the end of the world. Everything has been destroyed," Canova could not help saying.
No one answered him. Napoleon stood before the church altar in plain clothes. A thousand years ago, Pepin might have stood in that very same spot.
Wind blew freely through the glassless windows, sounding like some sort of sobbing.
"Where do you think those treasures might be hidden?" Bessières asked eagerly.
"Saint Louis collected many relics: Christ's blood, Maria's milk. He